Accidental ‘Jihadist’

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Military check stop in Yala in August.

Despite often criticizing military policy in the southern border provinces for their heavy-handed and human rights violating habits, there is a genuine effort to win the people's hearts and minds.

The soldiers in the South are usually friendly, polite, and working hard to both do their jobs and keep themselves safe.

Yet the notoriety of past events like Tak Bai keep coming back to dismiss efforts to win hearts and minds.

More troublesome is the possibility that the military's violent antics will start to attract regional or even global jihadists to the cause.

From Philip Golingai:

"In my interviews (three 12-minute prison visits) with Muhammad Fadly, he related that Ustaz Muhammad, a secretive religious teacher in his early 30s, had convinced him to slip into southern Thailand to help Thai Muslims oppressed by the government.

The final year mechanical industry student believed the ustaz after watching video footage of the massacre in Tak Bai, a Thai border town on Malaysia-Thailand border, where 78 Thai Muslim protesters – who were packed like sardines – died of suffocation and injuries while being transported in military trucks on Oct 25, 2004."

Thai authorities are often very worried about internationalizing the southern conflict as they fear increased attention from the international community would ultimately lead to calls for international intervention.

But this is certainly another type of international attention that Thailand could best do without.

And, of course, it is just another in a long line of reasons for the military to maintain strict adherence to the country's laws and international conventions on human rights.

International Scholars Call for Reform of Thailand's Lese Majeste Law

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Royal Guard on parade. November 23rd, 2008.

Over that the Foreign Corespondents Club Thailand (FCCT) there will be a very interesting press conference on lese majeste reform.

Notably, the speakers are only there via internet link, and not actually in Thailand.

From the FCCT:

Wednesday, March 4, 10:00 am

Thailand's lese majeste law has been abused for political purposes. Even Dr. Tej Bunnag, an advisor to the Office of His Majesty's Principal Private Secretary, said recently that the lese majeste law is a problem.

More than 50 international scholars and dignitaries have signed a letter to the Thai Prime Minister calling for reform of the lese majeste law. The letter comes after a spate of lese majeste cases in Thailand and moves by the Thai government to restrict internet discussion of the royal family.

Initial signatories to the letter include leaders in human rights and civil liberties, world class scholars, leading legal scholars, and leading international scholars of Southeast Asia and Thailand. The press conference will be conducted via internet (Skype).

Speakers:

• Dr. Thongchai Winichakul from Madison, Wisconsin

• Dr. Andrew Walker from Canberra, Australia

Homophobia and Politics

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The 'Red Shirts' protesting at Government House on February 24th, 2009 with a rather effeminate poster of Prime Minister Abhisit.

From Pravit at the Nation:

"Homophobia has been used as a political tool by key elements in both camps on different occasions, casting doubt on how democratic and pluralistic some of these people truly are."

From the gutter to the sewer

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As outlined by Awzar Thi over at the Rule of Lords, Thailand's human rights reputation has been in serious decline.

Citing the The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), the main issues are:

• Repeated overthrow of elected governments by antidemocratic forces
• Large-scale public criminal activity not followed with investigations or prosecutions
• Internet censorship and lese majesty witch-hunt
• Threats to human rights defenders
• Refoulement, murder and impunity on the high seas

The ALRC declares that these abuses indicate a 'rise of the internal-security state and decline of human rights' since the 2006 military coup d'etet.

But I dont think blame solely rests with the junta or the ultra-nationalist forces. Yes, things are much worse now, but Thailand's human right's downward spiral began with Thaksin.

Which Thi summarizes as:

"All this [the above listed offenses] and more is being put before the current sitting of the Human Rights Council. Ironically, back in 2006 before the coup Thailand tried to get a seat on the council. It failed then not because of poor diplomacy, as it claimed, but because after five years of government under Thaksin Shinawatra its rights reputation was in the gutter. It is not in the gutter any more. Now it’s in the sewer."

I couldnt agree more, Thailand's human rights reputation was already soiled by Thaksin, and what we are seeing now is simply a bad situation getting worse and worse.

And as Thailand's international reputation sinks, anti-foreign sentiment grows.

Issues like the military's persistent torture and murder in the South, PAD's lawlessness on the Bangkok streets, the Rohingya being cast off to their death in the ocean are now being discounted as some sort of foreign conspiracy to discredit Thailand international reputation.

Like the xenophobic comments by Col Manas Kongpan - regional commander of the Internal Security Operations Command - when queried about the death of the Rohingya: "They all [news reports] come from journalists who have problems with Thailand and just want to slander us,"

So instead of cleaning up a seriously disgraced human rights record and restoring international confidence in Thailand, it is easier for narrow minded xenophobes to concoct a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

And anti-foreign statements like this simply highlight the downward spiral of Thailand's international human rights reputation that was in the gutter with Thaksin, but is in the sewer with the military.

More from Giles

Giles is back and has some interesting quotes.

First, from the Guardian, titled "Thailand's battle for democracy":

"Five years ago, Thailand had a thriving and developing democracy with freedom of expression, a relatively free press and an active civil society, where social movements campaigned to protect the interests of the poor. Today, the country is creeping towards totalitarianism.

Since his (Thaksin's) overthrow and as a result of the prolonged crisis, a grassroots "red shirt" democracy movement has developed. They are moving beyond Thaksin. What is also amazing is that this is becoming a republican movement because of the actions of the military and the PAD in dragging the monarchy into politics."

Not sure how the rest of the Red Shirt movement is going to appreciate being labeled as republican. But in a country where there is simply no honest discussion of the monarchy, it is hard to say whether there is actually support for a republic. If the Red Shirts quietly adopt this, fracture into different groups, or distance themselves from republicanism will be the only way to really see if Giles is correct about it becoming a republican movement.

Regardless though, royalists will be boiling with violent rage over this and the likelihood of clashes between Yellow Shirts and Red Shirts seem certain.

And over that the New Mandala, there is part one of an interview with Giles. Some of the more interesting quotes:

"But I was not going to leave the country with my tail between my legs, I was not going to run away. Once, I left the country, I decided to fight back without any restriction. I wrote the notes of the Manifesto on the airplane I flew from Bangkok to London.

I felt that really it was necessary for someone to say those things because it was in the mind of thousands of people in Thailand but nobody has said it.

What is interesting is that this Manifesto, in a Western European context, is not very progressive. It is normal. In a Thai context, however, it is explosive. I think that indicates the difference between the amount of democracy in Thailand and the amount of democracy in Britain or Western Europe.

I think the whole situation in Thailand has reached what I would describe as a civil war. It might not be a violent civil war, but it is a civil war of ideas between two sections of society. And the Red Shirts section is rapidly becoming republican. So, really, people want to move beyond just fighting Lese Majeste, and talk about political reform. I think people are ready for that.

I think that the monarchy must be feeling insecure. Even more important, I think that the military and those that have in the past enjoyed undemocratic power but claimed legitimacy from the monarchy are really very, very scared that when this King dies, their legitimacy will evaporate because they are not going to be able to claim the same legitimacy from the Crown Prince."

I am not necessarily in agreement with Giles but I certainly appreciate his decision to fight back and to force discussion on the monarchy.

He is certainly right about his manifesto not being progressive in Europe, but it is nothing short to seditious in Thailand.

"Thai Law" from Al Jazeera

There are reports that the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, or MICT is attempting to block all access to Professor Giles Ungpakorn's incendiary 'Red Siam Manifesto.


From Prachatai:

Aree Jiworarak, Director of the Information Technology Supervision Office under the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, sent e-mails to executives of internet service providers (ISPs), saying that the Office had found there was a publication disseminated on the internet called the ‘Red Siam Manifesto’ which affected national security.

He asked for their cooperation in ‘keeping watch for the circulation of the article. And if your systems can enable filters to prevent access to it, please do so, as that would greatly benefit national security. Please act urgently.’

This above Al Jazeera video is rumored to be blocked already by a few Thai ISP's. But, at the time of posting, it was still available.

The real question though is how long MICT will attempt to stifle the internet because a simple search for 'Red Siam Manifesto' in quotes found 1990 sites...and counting.

And this simply reaffirms the uselessness of lese majeste laws, the more you try to suppress information, the more curious people will be about it.

Red Siam Manifesto

From the Guardian UK: British professor flees Thailand after charge of insulting king

A leading Bangkok-based professor who has joint British and Thai nationality fled Thailand at the weekend in the face of a lengthy sentence under the country's draconian lese-majesty laws, which forbid criticism of the king.
...
"I did not believe I would receive a fair trial," said Ungpakorn
....

He said that the charges arose out of eight paragraphs in the first chapter deemed insulting to King Bhumibol. He claimed that the director of a university bookshop stocking his book had informed the special branch that it "insulted the monarchy". The offending paragraphs deal with incidents around the coup.

"It is clear that the charge is really about preventing any discussion about the relationship between the military junta and the monarchy," Ungpakorn said. "This is in order to protect the military's sole claim to legitimacy: that it acted in the interests of the monarchy."

As was the case of Harry Nicolaides, it is not a matter of a free trail but an attempt to stifle discussion on the monarchy.

But Professor Giles has gone much, much further. He has now released the "Red Siam Manifesto" and its now not just a matter of lese majeste but a call for revolution.

The contents, which I will not link to because of my own genuine fear of lese majeste, can now be found all over the internet in both English and Thai.

As we all know, the consequences draconian laws that stifle usually result in increased attention and readership of offending writings. This, of course, has the opposite result of what the authorities want - increased readership of lese majeste writings.

But there are two much more serious implications this time.

The first is that the international press is reporting that a prominent academic has fled Thailand claiming political repression. Thailand's increasingly ugly international reputation is seemingly in free fall.

The next, and much more serious, is that repression has resulted in a call to resistance. And for a nation which genuinely loves the King, it is simply stunning.

And this is the true failing of lese majesty, because it is a tool most often employed by shady politicians, it has backfired and has sown the seeds of dissent.

This conflict is going to going to be nasty.

New, easy, legal tools for circumventing Internet censorship

With lese majesty laws reaching a fever pitch in Thailand, there is some helpful advice from Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT):

Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the Official Censor of the Military Coup, has blocked at least 17,775 websites which, along with blocking by the Royal Thai Police, resulted in more than 50,000 websites blocked in Thailand. Public webboard discussions, circumvention tools, voices from Thailand's Muslim South and critical commentary of Thailand's monarchy were particularly targetted for censorship.


Thailand's military government also passed a Computer-Related Crimes Act with draconian penalties and onerous data retention provisions abnegating privacy and anonymity and chilling public discussion of vital issues among Thais. The result of this cybercrime law was to criminalise circumvention with one notable exception, the Virtual Private Networks (VPN) relied on by business to create a secure, private, encrypted channel.


Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) is pleased to provide links to two new, easy tools for private citizens to legally ignore Thailand's Internet censorship. Virtual Private Networks have been complicated to set up and difficult to maintain. However, with these two free, public tools, VPN is available to everyone.


Your own private network is located overseas beyond the reach of Thai censors using an encrypted tunnel so that governments and ISPs won't even be able to see where you're surfing. Unlike anonymous Internet proxies, criminal under the cybercrime law, using VPN makes streaming video and audio freely available.


Two simple, free VPN applications are HotSpot Shield (Mac and Windows) <http://www.hotspotshield.com/

, AlwaysVPN (Mac, Windows, Linux) <http://alwaysvpn.com/index.html> and Social VPN (Windows, Linux) http://socialvpn.wordpress.com/. Run the installer and they just work with one click every time you get to a blocked website.


The United States has plans to create a national broadband network which will censor all "pornography" and Australia is planning on spending $189 million on a firewall to ensure pornography cannot be accessed there.


Both Sweden and England have announced plans to capture every electronic communication passing their borders.


The Thai government has announced plans to set up a national firewall to block l?se majest? content along with "pornographic, obscene and terrorist websites" with a budget of 100 to 500 million Thai baht or $2.9 to $14.6 million. Current law requires government to obtain a court order to block websites. This is most often accomplished by rubber-stamp orders. The new censorship plan would illegally block websites without court order.


Can any country afford such measures to censor free expression?


Would this money not be better spent on amazing Thailand's amazing social crises, such as peace, justice and reconciliation in the South, or even Internet education?


Thailand's prime minister deposed by fiat had plans to block 800,000 websites here. His legacy in the current government claims to block "only 2,300" sites, emphasising censorship of sites critical of Thailand's monarchy with plans to block a further 400. A video insulting the Thai King resulted in a seven-month ban on YouTube by the coup government. This ban resulted in dozens of copycat videos.


Google cooperated with the Thai government's requests in secret, creating geolocational blocking; when users attempt to access a blocked video, a message states, "This video is not available in your country," and occurs along with government redirection by transparent proxy. Much of the Internet censorship is directed at the dozens of videos satirising, criticising, insulting, demeaning, defaming or merely commenting on Thailand's monarchy, particularly the prolific and irreverent StopLeseMajeste YouTube channel.


There are now wholesale accusations of l?se majest? in Thailand with each faction claiming to act for the protection of the monarchy. Two webboard forum posters were arrested under the cybercrime law for their comments about the monarchy after being tracked by their IP address. At the time of King Bhumibol's 60th anniversary celebrations, there were more than 60 persons under charges of l?se majest?. Currently there are at least 34 charged but this figure is misleading as accusations of l?se majest? have resulted in numerous bans of critical media, including books, film, television, radio and websites.


The King himself has invited criticism but Thai people love their King but never listen to his words. L?se majest? charges always result from petty bureaucrats and policemen.


Governments believe they can censor free speech with impunity. VPN proves they cannot.



HotSpot Shield (Mac and Windows) <http://www.hotspotshield.com/>

AlwaysVPN (Mac, Windows, Linux) <http://alwaysvpn.com/index.html>

Social VPN (Windows, Linux) <http://socialvpn.wordpress.com/>

Press Statement Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn Regarding Lese Majeste charges

I have previsouly blogged about professor Giles Ungpakorn's book 'A Coup for the Rich' which I wrote:

"His unprecedented questioning of the monarchy is nothing short of breath-taking.

In a climate of fear where any rational questioning of the monarchy has the very real possibility of leading to a prison term it is important to have an academic brave enough to raise important issues that are essential elements to resolving Thailand’s political quagmire."

Now, of course, Giles has come up against Thailand's draconian lese majesty laws.

Which you can read about here at the BKK Post:Giles faces lese majeste charge

And below is his press release.

It is easy to see that Giles is going to bring an enormous amount of publicity to this in which his book and his ideas on the monarchy will be further disseminated. This is, of course, shows just how futile it is trying to censor freedom of expression and just how shameless and antiquated lese majesty laws are.

From Giles:

As you know, I have been summonsed to Pathumwan police station for questioning at 10.00 am on Tuesday 20th January 2009. I have been accused of Lese Majeste. The charge arises from my book “A Coup for the Rich”, published in 2007. Those found guilty of Lese Majeste face a heavy prison sentence.

1. The Lese Majeste Law in Thailand does not allow the for the proper functioning of a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy, since it restricts freedom of speech and expression and does not allow for public accountability and transparency of the institution of the Monarchy. The Thai population are encouraged to believe that we live under an “ancient system of Monarchy”, a cross between a Sakdina, Absolute and Constitutional Monarchy system.

2. The use of the Lese Majeste Law in Thailand is an attempt to prevent any discussion about one of the most important institutions. It attempts to prevent critical thought and encourage a system of “learning by rote” among the population. For example, once the Monarch has given his blessing to the “Sufficiency Economy”, we are all supposed to accept it and praise it without question. Luckily, this type of brain-washing does not work very well in Thai society, for a society which cannot openly discuss economic and political policies will remain backward and under-developed.

3. The Military often claim that they are the “defenders of the Constitutional Monarchy”, yet the Thai Military has a long history of making un-constitutional coups. These are often “legitimised” by claiming to protect the Monarchy. The 19^th September 2006 coup is a good example. Rather than defending the Monarchy as such, the military sought to legitimise themselves by referring to the Monarch. The Lese Majeste Law is thus used as a tool by the military, and other authoritarian elites, in order to protect their interests instead of preserving the Constitutional Monarchy. The promotion of an image that the Monarchy is all powerful (an un-constitutional image), is part of this self-legitimisation by the military and other forces.

4. Constitutional Monarchs in most democratic countries enjoy stability while being subjected to public scrutiny. Therefore we must conclude that the Thai Lese Majeste Laws are not in place in order to bring stability to the institution, but serve another purpose.

5. Those who charge me with Lese Majeste are doing so because I have shown a principled and unyielding opposition to military coups and dictatorships. Many other activists are facing similar charges for the same reason. We must not forget their plight. We must wage an international and national political campaign to defend democratic rights in Thailand and for the abolition of the Lese Majeste law.

My book “A Coup for the Rich”

I wrote and published this book a few months after the 19^th September 2006 military coup. The book was an attempt to write an academic analysis of the Thai political crisis from a pro-democracy point of view. While constantly criticising the Thaksin government’s gross abuses of Human Rights, I argued that the coup was totally unjustified. I argued that those who supported the coup: the military, the PAD, disgruntled businessmen, neo-liberals and conservative civil servants, were united in their contempt for the poor. They have no faith in democracy because they believe that the poor do not deserve the right to vote. They also hate Thaksin’s party because it could win elections, while they could not.

Another important theme in my book is the questioning of the perceived “fact” that the crisis was a result of a dispute between the Monarchy and Thaksin. It is this argument of mine that may have enraged the military most of all, since they wished to use Royal legitimacy for their coup. I also attempted to stimulate a discussion about whether a Constitutional Monarchy should defend the Constitution and Democracy. In another section of the book I tried to paint an historical account of the Monarchy and to argue that it is now a modern institution, not a feudal one.

I have now sold all 1000 copies of “A Coup for the Rich”, but it is available to download from my blog http://wdpress.blog.co.uk/ and from the International Socialist Tendency website in the U.K. Just after publication, the book was withdrawn from sale by Chulalongkorn University bookshop and later by Thammasart University bookshop.

I reject totally the accusation that I have committed any crime by writing and publishing this book. I am prepared to fight any Lese Majeste charges in order to defend academic freedom, the freedom of expression and democracy in Thailand.

Since this accusation was filed by a Special Branch officer, the present Democrat Party Government should be questioned about its role in this and many other cases. The new Prime Minister has stated that he wants to see a firm crackdown on les majesty and many recent cases have been filed by the police.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

13 January 2009

What you can do

1. Write a letter of protest/concern to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, Government House, Bangkok, Thailand. Fax number +66(0)29727751

2. Write a letter of protest/concern to the Ambassador, The Royal Thai Embassy, in your country.

3. Demand that Amnesty International take up all Les Majesty cases in Thailand.

4. Demand the abolition of the les majesty law.

WAR! Oh no, my mistake...its just a holiday

The ghastly scene of about sixty dead bodies laid out in front of Santika nightclub in Bangkok has been front page news and, given that it was a direct result of Thailand's notoriously abysmal safety standards, it certainly deserves to be highlighted.

But if you look closer, one of the other stories is: '56 die on first day of holiday'.

Yes, it is holiday time and that means that accidental deaths and injuries - primarily on the roads but, as the pub fire shows, not exclusively - in the Kingdom during the next seven days will soar into the thousands.

To put this needless bloodshed in perspective, it might be good to look at the death toll from actual war.

The scale of Israel's current war on Gaza (six days long so far) from the BBC:

Palestinian medical sources say 391 people have been killed.

The total of deaths from the insurgency in Southern Thailand since 2004 according to wikipedia:

The death toll surpassed 3,000 in March 2008.

And the total of deaths from two days of holiday traffic in Thailand from the Nation:

The road accident death toll of the two first days of the seven dangerous New Year holidays stood at 143...On Wednesday alone, 87 people were killed and 960 injured on the road

And from a simple Google search of "road accidents statistics thailand' found a site called Global Road Safety Partnership which describes Thailand's road accidents in 2005:

According to official statistics (police), 12,858 people were killed in road crashes in 2005. However the real number might even be higher. According to documentation from the health sector, the real death toll could be 20,000 or more if victims who die after being removed from the crash scene are included.

The primary causes of road crashes are the dangerous mix of motorcyclists and larger vehicles, alcohol impaired driving, and excessive speed. Many road deaths happen during the two national holidays: New Year (6 days) December/January and Songkran (9 days) in April.

So what really might need to be highlighted in the news is not simply the negligence of one nightclub but the nation-wide negligence that allows holiday fatalities to be compared to the fatalities of war.